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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521513">too much.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowrabblerouser/pseuds/rainbowrabblerouser'>rainbowrabblerouser</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I project onto gay characters with ADHD in melancholy [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Onward (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ADHD, Character Study, Gay Character, Melancholy, Projecting onto Character, Title from a Carly Rae Jepsen Song, bro you got the whole studio audience crying</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 14:21:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,242</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowrabblerouser/pseuds/rainbowrabblerouser</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Barley doesn't have much to do.</p><p>He has quite a lot to say.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I project onto gay characters with ADHD in melancholy [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712914</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>too much.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUNe26oPjDA</p><p>listen to this</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Barley is a name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It means cereal and if that didn’t sum of his existence, he didn’t know what did.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s the failure kid and the mistake and the gay one and the ADHDer and the overall fuck-up who would fight cops for historical preservation and get complaints that would fill up the answering machine and he’d just chuck it out the window when his mom told him to delete them all. They were all the same.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Your son, Barley, is sleeping in class–”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He punched an old man for being right-wing..”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You owe me a new car.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d get chewed out, but all faded to static and high-pitched noises.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck, did he forget to take his meds again?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had been about three (3) weeks since he remembered to do so, and frankly, he was considering just throwing it all out. Or better yet, making up for it by taking it all at once with Listerine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Maybe it’d be more exciting than this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Don’t get him wrong, he loves his brother and how smart he is, but no amount of hot nerd guys who’d be too stuck-up and uppity to be let him top them would make up for the fact that he was bored. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he wanders around the place until he finds the bathroom and just hangs around there until he gets bored of that too.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Later on, he’d figure out the food situation and then drive back to college.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was always bored, but this place was just the same energy as what he assumed what an ion was like on the inside or whatever.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Also, he was probably the dumbest person there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nothing like his inferiority complex to awaken here.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley wasn’t that type of smart; he’s an English major. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>An artist. An actor. Anything but this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He would sleep during math and listen to Vampire Weekend in the front row.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sure, he talked too much and out of turn and he had no friends as a result, but he was fun and interesting enough to entertain people who would pay to hear him crack jokes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Barley is a name.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hears that in the hallway with the gender-neutral bathroom.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I heard your set. So you are real. And more attractive in person.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All right, Barley is not a slut, but who knows?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There he was, doing sinful things with some guy he had passed by earlier in the gender-neutral restroom at this nerd olympics.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had done much worse; sneak guys over to his house when Ian was on field trips, pull them through his window when his mom was out of town, straight-up fuck in the back of his van. You name it, he’s probably done it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley figured out he’s gay when he was 13. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t really a surprise. More like a confirmation. Like the missed payments that littered his car and his room and his pockets.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had bigger problems like figuring out how to get this guy to finish in him real quick and the explanation as to why he had been gone so long.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Days bled together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s not like he’s a sex addict or anything, he was just really bored and had a lot of time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lots of time on his hands and lots in his hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley didn’t really expect much, so when he left the bar with someone, he was shocked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His walks of shame were just runs of confusion. Where was he? Which way home?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For once, he’d like someone to really...get him. Like him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alas, he’d have to wait.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had his whole life ahead of him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So when the guy leaves and he gets his number and social media, he doesn’t text him first. He’s not a desperate guy. Just lonely.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley used to spend so many hours staring up at the ceiling thinking about it all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d likely die alone with only meaningless sex and flings to his name.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sure, his best man speech at Ian’s wedding would be killer. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that would be it for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley Lightfoot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Cereal Lightweight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He gets so bored out of his mind he starts drinking mouthwash.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s stupid, but it’s cheap and gets him to feel something.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley is too much.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He would never change because that meant he was weak and relenting. He could never.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let anything go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everyone got tired of him eventually and maybe he’d be exhausted too soon.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he’s all he had now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Without a personality, he’d just the guy in the gender-neutral restroom at the science fair who had finished the guy for him and was just hiding out waiting for nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nothing whatsoever.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He missed his dad. A lot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he refused to talk about it. So he just bottled everything up and then cried to his therapist like everyone else.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>bar·ley</span>
</p><p>
  <span>/ˈbärlē/</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>noun</span>
  </em>
</p>
<ol>
<li><span>a hardy cereal that has coarse bristles extending from the ears. It is widely cultivated, chiefly for use in brewing and stockfeed.</span></li>
</ol><p> </p><p>
  <span>Geez, his parents must have been drinking mouthwash too.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ian got Ian; he’s the same weight as a box of Cookie Crisp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hated the concept of that brand– just a bag of chocolate chip cookies.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Like, grow up and eat some Chips Ahoy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley is too much.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Very well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nothing to be ashamed of – nothing at all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t been kicked out of school and he wasn’t in trouble with the cops. Again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley is the weird one. The fuck-up. The failure child.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything in between and everything Ian was not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He loves his brother so he heads to the presentation and takes 4K HDR photos of him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Front row.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley watches the sunset a lot. It made him feel like Luke Skywalker – gay icon.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He felt like he was from a different planet. ADHD-ton. Gaytopia. Fucksberg.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course, he had never been in love or had anyone hold a candle for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he wondered what it was like. To have someone yearn for your touch. Want nothing more than to be in your arms. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Have someone desire to just lay with you and just be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That’s something his ex had said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was a farm boy and a genius, but just really bad at answering him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Part of the deal is to give attention and get attention back. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Farm boy wasn’t well-versed in emotions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But the absolute worst time he had was before that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley wasn’t a romantic, but his childhood crush would tease him and never deliver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Was he stupid? A fool? A simpleton?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He knew he had the closest thing to being in love with him. He was perfect.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley is nowhere near perfect in any way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So when he moves away and he aches and longs for perfect summers and crystal clear skies and hearts made of something sturdier than glass, he knows one thing to be true.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He may just be unlovable.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unlikable.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley was a public nuisance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Playing his hipster punk music too loud at night, sobbing his damn eyes out over nothing, wishing he had a purpose, pining and yearning for whoever gave him time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was well aware that slow dances and tender kisses were never for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All he had gotten were one-night stands and walls of shame. Rejection.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melancholy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That’s his friend. With zero (0) benefits.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Barley’s too much.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Perhaps it’s just that:</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Life was not enough.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At least–</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not for him.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
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